False Alarms Spark Proposal

Sheriff Seeks Charge For Each Call

WESTON — Patrol cars and fire engines are dispatched to Weston residences about 560 times each month to respond to false alarms.

That pulls scarce resources from real emergencies, said John Feltgen, chief of Broward Sheriff's Office District 8. He said there were 571 false alarms in the city last month _ an all-time high.

This week, Feltgen asked city commissioners to approve a proposed ordinance that would charge alarm companies $13 for every alarm, false or real, that his officers respond to. It would also have alarm companies post a $500 cash bond to do business in the city and pay an additional $100 to register. If the company fails to comply, the city would revoke its license.

If the proposal were to pass, alarm industry officials said, it would the first time companies would be singled out for their customers' errors.

``I can't go to my customers and tell them I can't monitor them anymore because the cost of doing business in Weston is too high,'' said Robert Worthy, president of Secur Technologies. ``The customers are going to suffer. The costs will be carried over to them.''

Commissioner Steve Keller, who researched other alarm ordinances, said he thinks Weston should model its law after one used in Phoenix since the 1970s.

That law helped cut the number of false alarms per system from two each month to 0.7.

``Alarm systems can be a great deterrent against crime if they are used properly,'' said Patricia Rea, of the Phoenix Police Department's alarm unit.

For each false alarm, the user and company get fined $74 and it's up to them to decide who will pay for it. Users can also attend ``alarm class'' to teach owners how to avoid tripping their alarms.

``I want to preserve the low cost of alarm systems,'' Keller said. ``If we charge alarm companies, it will affect everyone, even those who never have false alarms and I don't want that.''

National statistics show that 90 percent of all house alarms are false and that 80 percent of those are caused by user errors, said Ron Walters, coordinator for the Model States Program, which is producing a report on false alarms for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Lightning is also a major cause of false alarms in Weston, Worthy said, and that's no one's fault.

David Mims, president of the Alarm Association of Florida, said charging companies for user errors is ``like getting a speeding ticket and taking it to the car dealership.''

After a two-hour discussion, commissioners tabled the issue, saying they would debate a better ordinance during a workshop meeting before voting on it.